Buoyed by last weekend’s shock win over top-four contenders Eintracht Frankfurt, Augsburg had already gone close through Richter when Rani Khedira volleyed in from Jonathan Schmid with just 11 minutes on the clock. Mario Gomez fired at Andreas Luthe from close range, before Stuttgart allowed Andre Hahn all the time in the world to bring a Schmid corner under wraps and drive low into the net. Augsburg added a third before the half-hour mark, with Philipp Max skipping the offside trap to apply an emphatic finish to Richter’s through-ball.

Anastasios Donis and Daniel Didavi entered the Stuttgart fray after the restart, but Markus Weinzierl’s half-time tinkerings failed to arrest the slide. Richter thrashed in an exquisite volley after the visitors failed to clear a deflected strike from Konstantinos Stafylidis, before Max met Hahn’s pass with his second and Augsburg’s fifth with less than an hour gone. Luthe’s goal-line double save to deny Didavi and Gomez summed up Stuttgart’s afternoon, which went from bad to cataclysmic when Richter thrashed in a 25-yard rocket for his second brace in as many games, leaving VfB six points adrift of safety with 12 left to play for.